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Hong Kong-set immigrant housewife video game is a love letter to hardworking mums everywhere

Inspired by their own immigrant mothers and grandmothers, the developers of the game Oblige have created a unique experience that depicts the tedium and frustration of those who helped nurtured Hong Kong’s growth

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The pixel art in Oblige (available on PC) depicts a retro Hong Kong of low-rise buildings and grimy back alleys.
Life in Hong Kong is not easy. Our cost of living continues to rise and the working class continues to struggle. Some say it wasn’t always like this, but they’re fooling themselves.
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Hong Kong has always been tough for those living near the bottom rung, particularly immigrants. Their tales have been covered in documentaries, films and books, but hearing them is one thing; immersing yourself in the experience is something else entirely.

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Oblige is a 2D side-scrolling/typing PC game that puts you in the shoes of an immigrant housewife living in Hong Kong in 1979. It became an instant cult hit, completely out of left field: developers Jocelyn Kim and Ivan Tsang are 21-year-old undergraduate students at the University of Southern California and Oblige was made for one of their gaming classes.

It was only supposed to be a simple school assignment. But then it got nominated at the IndieCade Festival – the game world’s equivalent of the Sundance Film Festival – and everything changed.

The game’s appeal centres on its setting and concept: a retro Hong Kong of low-rise buildings and grimy back alleys, styled in era-appropriate pixel art, with a narrative focused on the back-breaking responsibilities of the women who helped nurture our city’s growth.

“We were inspired by stories of the Asian immigrant mothers and grandmothers in our own lives,” says Tsang, who was raised in Hong Kong. “We realised that among narrative games, there weren’t many set in Hong Kong. When developing the game, one of our player-experience goals was ‘frustration’ over ‘fun’. We wanted to immerse players and have them understand what is going on in the protagonist’s – the mother’s – mind.”

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A randomised mapping of characters to your virtual keyboard conveys the difficulties of talking in a foreign tongue.
A randomised mapping of characters to your virtual keyboard conveys the difficulties of talking in a foreign tongue.

Oblige is set over five virtual days. Each day sees your stressed housewife wake up, check her to-do list and get to work. Your tasks are as tedious as they come – grocery shopping, laundry and the like. As you complete your chores and the day comes to an end, you engage in dinner conversations with your husband and son – all in a tongue foreign to your character.

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